I am delighted to be speaking here this evening and I am very proud to be part of such an inspirational rally in this International Women’s Month. I am proud to have started my student activism as a students’ union women’s officer. I am proud that now, as NUS President, I am leading a national union that prioritises women’s equality and that this year we are celebrating 20 years of a national NUS Women’s Officer.

I am proud of the TUC/NUS protocol agreement on student workers and that the trade union movement and student movement are working together to promote collectivist values, social solidarity and trade union membership among young people and I am proud of the Women at Work campaign NUS is launching this month in partnership with Amicus the union - a campaign to inform and empower individual women students and to lobby political parties for their commitment to improving working conditions for women workers.

Part-time employment has become a necessity of student life in this day and age of tuition fees and rising student debt. More than half of all full-time students and nearly all part-time students work during the academic year. And these students workers are vulnerable workers. Over 60% work in retail, hotels and catering - low paid sectors with few or no guaranteed rights. Very few actually belong to trade unions - only four per cent of students aged 18-25 are trade union members. There is a strong gender dimension to all this – for part-time workers there is a massive gender pay gap of 38.5%.

As well as inequality in terms of pay, women workers are facing a number of discriminatory practices including sexual harassment, inflexible working conditions and the senior roles still tending to go to the men. It is vital that the student movement and the trade union movement continues to work together to inform women students of their rights at work, of the advantages of trade union membership, and of the kinds of challenges that they face as they work part-time to support their studies.

Students have told us that when it comes to pay disparities between women and men, they don’t just want to “mind the gap”, they want to close it! This is why NUS Women’s Campaign is co-ordinating a national student campaign to petition the government for mandatory equal pay audits. Students are asking the Government to recognise that the voluntary approach to equal pay reviews is failing. Employers must be forced to assess the structural inequalities in their businesses and to then act to reduce the gender pay gap.

We also want the Government to hear the voices of the young people not benefiting from the main rate of the National Minimum Wage. Some of the main beneficiaries since the introduction of the National Minimum Wage have been women, it is time to extend that benefit to all workers aged 16 and above. Let’s face it; a loaf of bread, nappies, tea, and rent cost the same whether we are 16 or 86! We want an end to the exploitation of the young people who are working so that they can participate in further education!

My message to you today is this …… it’s not just the workplace but also the campus that must be a vital part of the trade union strategy to recruit and organise workers! And the campaign for women’s equality at work needs to be at the heart of any such strategy. We want to work with our colleagues in the trade union movement to urge as many students as possible to consider union membership. And, through our Women at Work campaign, to reach the women in further and higher education today – informing and empowering them for the work they’re doing now to fund their studies and for the work they’ll go on to do after graduation.

As the slogan for our Women at Work campaign reads – From bar work to barrister.... isn’t it about time we had equality between women and men at work?

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